Real-life Frankenstein uncovered, part 2

In the last Daily Dose, I promised you the details of a gruesome scandal currently unfolding in the domestic human tissue industry – a tale of back-room body-stripping from funeral homes using falsified consent forms, and using a fraudulently obtained tissue harvesting license. So here those details are, as revealed by an Associated Press expose’ on an ongoing investigation by New York state and U.S. Federal authorities. Among the offenses he’s accused of:

Authorizing the removal of skin, bone, teeth and other tissues earmarked for transplantation from jaundiced or spoiled corpses, sometimes over the objections of his master “cutter,” who’s also been implicated in the scandal.

Removing tissues from hundreds of corpses without the knowledge of the next of kin. Among these bodies, bizarrely enough, was Alistair Cooke, the British-native host of Masterpiece Theatre.

Falsifying records, including fabricating nonexistent doctors’ names and addresses, to conceal medical conditions among “donors” that would’ve rendered them unsuitable for tissue harvesting. This resulted in a flood of diseased or past-their-prime body parts into the marketplace.

Neglecting proper screening procedures to determine a body’s suitability for tissue harvesting. This includes foregoing the detailed questionnaire for relatives regarding the deceased’s medical and social history – a key element in determining the presence or likelihood of disease. Doctoring death certificates to make “donors” younger on paper – or changing their cause of death so their tissues could legally be harvested.

Forging the authorizing signatures on hundreds, perhaps even thousands of releases allowing the harvesting of tissues from fresh (or not-so-fresh) corpses in funeral homes. The NYPD found only one instance among 1,077 “harvestees” in which a relative had given permission to remove tissue from the deceased.

Replacing harvested bones with LENGTHS OF PVC PIPE sewn up in bodies earmarked for “open casket” funerals. Needless to say, it’s doubtful that families of the deceased were informed of this.

Sickening and unbelievable, isn’t it?

Typically, body tissues for transplantation are harvested (by reputable tissue banks, that is) in hospitals, in a controlled, sanitary environment, and with the full informed consent of the deceased’s family – not the mention the previously arranged consent of the deceased.

But according to the AP article, the ghoulish criminal who helmed the tissue bank in question was among the first in the lucrative body parts industry to solicit funeral homes, where none of these conditions can be guaranteed. As if this weren’t bad enough, this guy wouldn’t have even qualified for the license to conduct his body-robbing business were it not for a pastiche of lies the New York state Department of Health clearly made no effort to verify

If they had, they’d have discovered that this former dentist was arrested (and forced to surrender his license for six months) for drug use and possession in 2000. A short time later he was nailed for practicing dentistry without a license – and suspended from the profession for four years.

It was during this four-year time period that he launched his lucrative tissue-harvesting business, sickening and killing who knows how many people with tainted flesh, bones, and teeth – and all after flatly denying any history of healthcare violations on his license application

Now I ask you: With all the technology available to us today, would it have been so difficult for the state of New York to do a basic public record background check (like they would for any street cop or security guard) on this fiend before granting him carte-blanche to go around to every funeral parlor in town hacking up diseased corpses for implantation into healthy Americans? I say the blood’s on their hands.

I started off this series talking about the tremendous potential for abuse of medical technologies. To be clear, this scenario isn’t so much an abuse of technology as much as it is an abuse of loopholes in an industry and largely unregulated marketplace created by advanced medical transplantation technology

But it’s the same thing. If the feds or states want to allow ever-increasing technologies to be used in medicine, they have to ACTUALLY REGULATE to ensure there aren’t abuses anywhere along the line that could hurt people in the end.

That means checking out who’s doing the supplying – and from where.